Page 63 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2020

• Tactical Air Defence, Air Traffic and Ranges Control Systems
• Transportable C4I Shelter Design and Fitout
• Tracking and Display Systems for Surveillance and C3
• Maritime Communications Direction Finding Systems
• Passive Radar and CUAS
• Link 16 Testing and Training
• Award winning excellence in project delivery
• Responsive and accountable
• Supporting Veterans through the Operation K9 program
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communications gear and she also has the new sonar suite as well, so we are very in- terested to see how she performs through her sea trials, through the remainder of this calendar year and into early next year,” CAPT Lindsay added.
THE FUTURE
The communications and sonar upgrades are planned to be completed by 2026, at which time a Collins Life Extension Pro- gram is planned to be underway and this has necessarily required some adjustment to the respective roll-out schedules of the communications and acoustic upgrades.
“There will be further progressive updates of the systems, but we expect these major upgrades will position Collins well for the remainder of its service life, but it will be more of a progressive update, tech refresh and incremental improvement rather than major upgrade work,” CAPT Lindsay said.
“Once we have completed these cur- rent project increments, we will undertake an Ongoing Sonar Capability Assurance (OSCA) program, which will be an incre- mental development of signal processing and software to improve the sonar through the remaining life of Collins and, where possible, take advantage of the lessons learned as we move into the Attack space.”
Work is also being undertaken with the US under the ACP framework, and supported by the Defence Science and Technology Group, to trial a virtual sys- tem architecture version of the Subma- rine Combat Control System hosted on a significantly reduced hardware footprint compared with the current operational combat system. A prototype system is cur- rently fitted to a Collins Class submarine and undergoing trials which will continue through the remainder of 2020.
While this is in the early stages of devel- opment, a prototype system could conceiv- ably be available for inclusion in a biennial Tech Insert in the next few years.
In the meantime, the AN/BYG-1 will re- main at the core of the Attack class combat system and there will also be some signifi- cant similarity between the upgrades to Col- lins delivered under Sea 1439/5B2 and the new submarine’s communications systems.
“It is an interesting challenge for us as we move forward, in terms of assuring the con- sistency of the system, to support how our fu- ture submariners interact with the technol- ogy and the capability offered by the combat system,” CAPT Lindsay concluded. ■
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